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The channel is in a state of serious flux, fueled by cloud computing, Internet of Things, mobility and other disruptive technologies, and many solution providers are trying to evolve their businesses in the face of digital transformation.

Emilio Ghilardi steps down as president of Lenovo's North America Business, AppDynamics launches a new Titan Partner Program, and Kaspersky Lab names Jason Stein as its new head of North American channels.

Emilio Ghilardi's replacement as president of Lenovo's North America business faces many obstacles as the company tries to muscle share away from data center stalwarts like HPE, Dell EMC and Cisco, solution providers said.

Dell Senior Vice President Steve Lalla, who has been leading the thin client charge at Dell for the last four years, is being replaced as the head of the cloud client solutions group by Jay Parker, a rising star within the company.

The solution provider, however, also made 10,800 'growth hires' in the most recent quarter to add these higher-end consulting, design and data science capabilities, CFO Karen McLoughlin said on the company's second-quarter earnings call.

Ransomware means more revenue for Symantec. CEO Clark said Symantec "definitely saw an uptick in pipeline" from the attacks and predicted a further boost in the coming quarters as more companies look to upgrade their security.

Even as its cloud business expands, CEO Ken Lamneck says there's an opportunity for the $5.4 billion Tempe, Ariz.-based company to take market share from smaller solution providers in the hardware space.

Solution provider CEOs should also outsource oversight of their sales reps to an account manager and offer salespeople money to leave their job in their first 90 to 180 days, according to former MSP executives.

XChange 2017 featured dozens of vendors – including Extreme, Ingram Micro, Ruckus Wireless and many others – promoting their automation platforms, data backups, cybersecurity solutions and other offerings. Here are 30 products that stood out from the pack.